carol: welcome to "bloomberg businessweek." i am carol massar. oliver: i am oliver renick. carol: in this week's issue, a question being asked from wall street to main street. oliver: if america were a company, would you keep its ceo? carol: that's next on "bloomberg businessweek." ♪ oliver: we are joined by bloomberg news editor-in-chief john micklethwait. john, in your opening remarks section of this week's "is this week" you essentially hold up donald trump his own meter stick, by his own standards for what he promised. tell us about how you went about taking about this. john: i think it's probably the

fairest way to judge him, and that he said it's the way he wanted to be judged. he sold himself as being a businessman who would run the government more efficiently, and he would do better negotiation. he rubbished barack obama, hillary clinton, generations of u.s. trade negotiatoris, and said he was better than this. he said he could run things very efficiently. i thought it was a nice conceit to sit and look and say, he was the ceo, and if you were the board examining how he had run this company of america, how well had he done? carol: let's go down that path. let's just take, talking to russian officials and giving up intelligence information, that is akin to -- john: allegedly. carol: allegedly. no, let's be fair. john: if you were the board and this was your ceo, you would immediately call the whole thing with comey, which obviously we have to find out what the facts are and then proceed, but at

least on the front of it, you would immediately say, what were you doing? were you trying to silence a whistleblower? which is effectively what it would appear. and that is a very egregious thing. in terms of inviting the russians in, and it would appear, handing over secrets to them, that is roughly the same as inviting what is your main competitors in the boardroom and handing over sensitive information. again, people would want to see that. any of the things that look like nepotistic or conflicts of interest, these are the things that boards would do. even the lowest version, which is many ceos -- if any ceo appears in public and says something that is manifestly untrue, they either -- they oftentimes lose their jobs because of that. you saw that happening at yahoo!, radioshack. at the very least, they have to very quickly come out and say, i misspoke, i was wrong.

the crowd at my inauguration wasn't larger than barack obama's. i didn't invent "priming the pump." there is a whole string of individual instances people could say. i think behind it there are three or four big ones. and those are, has he achieved anything? i think you would be worried by some of the goals he set for himself. i think the second, and perhaps most ceo-like thing he has failed to do, is to assemble a team. national security, you have an competent group of people there. simply, they haven't put enough people into most of the bits of the white house. out of the holes they have filled, a lot of them seem suspiciously filled by cronies of his. not necessarily what one was thought to be necessary to be fit for the job. oliver: it is an interesting way to assess what the president has done, to hold him up to what his promises were, saying i am going to run the company has a ceo. already this week, we were talking about what ceos have to

provide to their investors. at the end of the day, it ultimately comes down to creating shareholder value. they are held up to that quarterly. when you think about the president, it is almost sort of an apolitical conversation in terms of efficiency. john: i think that is the key point. his strategy is to achieve what he said he wanted to do, you almost put ideology to one side. this is not a left-wing look or right wing look at trump. it is simply, is he achieving the things he said he would do? managerially? regardless, he could be a communist or a conservative. it really doesn't matter. what matters is whether he is actually achieving things and behaving in a way that he is making government more efficient. and i think on quite a lot of levels of those, it may not be -- it may be retrievable, but on virtually every level you would judge a chief executive by, he

is not doing very well at the moment. carol: you make the point he is not like your typical ceo. his company wasn't that large, and he's written books about how he is the dealmaker. john: i think there's a bit there. to some extent -- if there is a problem with him saying he is going to run it like a business, in terms of the sort of business experience that would be really useful in running a government, he doesn't have that. he doesn't have running a large corporation, or organization. fewer than 100 people. his main skill was as a dealmaker, and doing the deal about a piece of property. getting it built, doing the deal about miss universe, all these different franchises he had. that is where he was skillful. occasionally you see some elements of that coming out of things he's done. this is not something i am in favor of, but his things to do with fair trade, you could argue his way of negotiating with canada and mexico, he may be getting a little progress there. but the basic functioning of government, running it in a

normal way where there is a smooth line of communication, that is not something he's had to worry about before, and do something he isn't great at. oliver: is that were the biggest hurdle is for him because of the way he was used to running his own company? he made the decisions from the top down. the buck stops with him. it seems like with the lack of having a communication team around him or following their instruction, that he kind of sets traps for himself. john: i think this is maybe reading a bit more than there is in the article, but there is the element that you have this style in private in his business where he could do these deals. he can make these weird pronouncements, and it was part of the fun of being donald trump. he took that into the campaign, and that worked quite well. tweeting as a way of campaigning worked extremely well. but basically, the idea that now you have this guy that is less of a manager -- almost more of a court with a king retreating

into bed with a cheeseburger and tweeting -- that is not normally, even the more wacky bits of silicon valley wouldn't endorse that. government is a big thing with hundreds of thousands of people and some very big responsibilities. that is a different set of instructions, and you can see the areas the trump administration are running in a grown-up way. you look at the tillerson, matus, mcmasters. there you get a sense of something run competently. but even then, when you have tillerson and nikki haley appearing at the same time saying different things about assad in syria, partly because they have no idea what the president is saying. communication is also a problem. the key point under this, this is an executive job. if you are the board, if you are the chairman, would you keep him as he is doing at the moment?

carol: creating a cover image for the news coming out of washington was the job of creative director rob vargas. rob: the concept came pretty naturally. it's the idea about this hypothetical of america being a company. we basically ask the question -- we didn't answer it, it is very open-ended -- if america were a company, would you keep the ceo? oliver: i like the coloring and the boldness of it because is pretty savage. it goes straight to the point, it is not political. it is this objective discussion about what has been promised and what has happened. rob: exactly. obviously, people's answers could be yes. we don't answer that question for anyone. oliver: up next, the infamous i word has started to surface on both sides of capitol hill. carol: impeachment. what the process actually looks like. this is "bloomberg businessweek." ♪

♪ >> welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." in the politics and policies session, lawmakers in washington has started drawing comparison between the trump and nixon white houses. oliver: inevitably there are rumbling of the word impeachment throughout capitol hill. we talked to reporter paul barrett about what that would mean. paul: impeachment is a fancy word for accusing the president of high crimes or misdemeanors. as is put in the constitution. carol: not actual charges. paul: right. that's what -- the house of representatives impeaches a president, equivalent to indicting the president, and he -- then the case goes over to the senate, where there is a try -- there is a trial. the senate can acquit or

convict. in the house you need only a simple majority to impeach. in the senate you need a 2/3 majority in order to remove the president. carol: here we are in a republican-controlled congress, is there no chance we could see president trump impeached? paul: i think it is fair to say it will be a real long shot with the current alignment. but remember, the 2018 elections are not that far off. if there continued to be more damning revelations and if democrats pounded the drum of impeachment, you could see by 2019 a more serious threat. carol: let me ask you about obstruction of justice, one of the things that has been talked about, that is what could lead to the impeachment of donald trump. legally, that is a pretty strong term. or is it? paul: it is. it is a crime defined by the federal statutes. it says anyone who corruptly tries to impede or otherwise interfere with public

proceedings is guilty of obstruction of justice. in the courts of law, it is a tricky crime to convict on because that notion of corruption implies that the prosecutor has to show a criminal intent on the part of the defendant. however, in the impeachment context, the technical requirements of criminal law do not necessarily apply. if the senate determines that what the president in question has done is obstruct justice, that is all they have to find. it is a much more political process than a conventional prosecution. carol: what does it possibly mean with a person like donald trump, who some will say -- if you read the news coming out of bloomberg news and other folks -- saying this is the kind of man he is, that maybe there wasn't any criminal intent, but that he may be said flynn is a good guy. it wasn't meant like to drop it, that this is how he operates. does that work in his favor? paul: i don't know -- certainly

that kind of argument would be mounted in his defense, whether he was in criminal court or in the congress. you would see his defense lawyer saying this guy is a wheeler dealer, he says he things -- he says things he doesn't always mean. when he says can you forget about the flynn investigation, he was just being aspirational and expressing his emotions. he wasn't actually trying to force the fbi director to do anything. sure, all of those things would be raised. in a criminal court were you have to show guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, i think those defenses could be quite effective. again, in the impeachment context, congress is looking for whether the president has abused his official power. that is sort of a broader concept, and the idea of obstruction of justice could be seen in a more flexible way. carol: what about -- we mentioned this meeting between president trump then fbi director james comey, where he said, he's a nice guy, can you drop this, so on and so forth. before that conversation, it is

said he actually asked other members of his administration to leave the oval office. that automatically put a veil of secrecy over it and makes it seem more criminal. paul: it absolutely makes the situation look a little morning -- more nefarious. and it would be something noted, the atmosphere surrounding the alleged infraction, there are other pieces of circumstantial evidence that i think could potentially play in. the fact that the deputy attorney general was basically put in the position of writing a defense of the firing of comey -- rod rosenstein -- that actually contradicted trump's own explanation when he went on national tv and said "i was thinking about the russian investigation when i showed this guy the door." carol: up next, a profile of the man with the most important job in the department of justice, deputy attorney general rob rosenstein. oliver: this is bloomberg.

♪

♪ oliver: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." carol: you can also listen to us on radio on sirius xm channel 119. oliver: and the politics and

policy section, a look at the reputation of deputy attorney general rob rosenstein. carol: which has suffered after his memo to president trump led to the firing of then fbi director james comey. here's editor matt phillips. matt: well, he wrote the memo president trump use justify the firing of james comey. our sources indicate rosenstein was not very pleased he was used as a scapegoat, even though he laid out quite a damning picture of james comey. what we got on wednesday night was kind of a vindication of rod rosenstein, which was the naming of the former fbi director robert mueller as the special counsel, so rosenstein kind of took the temperature of the political winds and realized he needed to do what both democrats and republicans were calling for, which was to name a special

counsel and get this outside of the political space and into the hands of a well-respected veteran prosecutor who will have total authority over this russia probe. carol: there's been calls for a special prosecutor now for a while. was rob rosenstein there from the beginning thinking this would be a good thing, or has he just come around to it later in the game? matt: that is a question i think only rob rosenstein can answer. the timing of this does suggest he was not there a few days ago, and very quickly when this thing blew up and he got a lot of backlash. nobody really knew who rod rosenstein was until he was used as a justification for firing james comey. i think very quickly he learned to resuscitate what had been his sterling reputation for 20 plus years as a federal prosecutor, he needed to do this and get it back into the hands of an

independent federal prosecutor and answer a lot of the calls that were coming from both democrats and republicans in congress. carol: my question is, is it still important whether or not we know as a voting public whether or not rod rosenstein was complicit in the firing of james comey, or possibly used as a pawn by the white house? is that still important to know? matt: he's not naive. anyone who has the career he has had clearly understands the intersection of justice and politics. that is where his job as deputy attorney general sits. the reporting we have gotten indicate he was surprised and angered by how his memo was used by the white house. take what you will out of that, but he is clearly answering the call that many people are asking him to do. carol: what do his friends say, those who really know him? from what i understand, people

on both sides of the political aisle like him and endorse him. what do those who know rod rosenstein say about him and his character? matt: that it is impeachable. he was the longest-serving attorney general of the united states in the entire country when he was nominated to be jeff sessions' deputy, basically put in charge of running the day-to-day operations of the justice department, and seen as somebody who could quite ably keep the white house from interfering with some of their highly charged investigations. i think people still feel that way about rosenstein even though mueller will have ultimate authority over this probe. rosenstein will determine his budget and have final say over whether he sticks around or not. it does seem that this will be entirely in the hands of bob mueller. he will have all the powers vested in a federal prosecutor. he can subpoena people, he can subpoena documents, he can, in

theory, depose the president. carol: interesting. in terms of what is left at the justice department, donald trump and his team are still pointing -- appointing posts at the fbi and justice. what kind of department does that leave? matt: well, you have an attorney general who is recused entirely from the biggest thing they're doing, which is this russia probe. they still have a lot of temporary people in place, whether it is at justice or the fbi. whether it is the acting fbi director mccabe or a handful of u.s. attorneys that are beneath rosenstein and do have some say, or at least they did, of having some authority over the russia probe. this reestablishes, i think, in the minds of a lot of people, the independence of the fbi inside what is a political department. oliver: staying in politics,

investors are beginning to shy away from donald trump and jared kushner's family businesses. caleb: back when he was running as a candidate, everybody thought it was going to go in the tanker and everyone was going to abandon him. that he won, and that conventional wisdom was reversed. for places where he is already doing business, be it mar-a-lago or the washington hotel, we see people cramming in for drinks and golf rounds. carol: people want the connection. at least on those properties. caleb: absolutely. however, in trying to make new deals, his sons who run his company now and his son-in-law jared kushner's company have had a really tough go of trying to either leverage the presidency or simply do business while in the presidency in terms of minting new deals. carol: you've been talking to individuals. what are they saying about kind of the trump association or the association with the trump brand and its many different

configurations? caleb: just look at what has happened this week so far. the trump association is changing rapidly every single day. typically not for the better, as of late. so people are concerned about not just being associated with the idea of the trump brand, but also being associated with the idea of exerting influence or trying to buy influence. most people aren't sure what to do with that. we've never had a president with this far-flung assets and businesses before. nobody really knows what it would mean to do a deal with the president while he is sitting in the white house, let alone one who has a habit of tweeting at businesses or people who make him angry on a fairly regular basis. carol: that's a good point. has you said, you don't know when he might come out and tweet about something. and he is not very consistent with his message. caleb: no he is not, and that makes people very nervous. you see that not just with his

business, but with the business of jared kushner. they've been trying to do a lot of deals in jersey city and they have had a hard time even though they have long been royalty in new jersey ever since trump took the white house. carol: i think we all read about that story, initially i thought, oh my god, i can't believe they are trying to use the influence of the white house because that just seems ethically like such a no-no. i guess they must have had some thinking that this could be a good thing for them. caleb: yeah, you see them going to china, the kushner family. they are not really getting any bites from either in china.

it is an interesting deal this -- dilemma they seem to be in or even far afield, people don't know what to make of them. carol: it is pretty amazing because the thing about any officials that go into government, that they got to get rid of any other their business interests or put things in blind trust. but what happened with the trump team and the trump family is you got his two sons overseeing it. correct? caleb: yeah, we talked to some folks who said, maybe doing business would be easier if there is a more believable and bright line between the white house and the business, but not only does trump still on his businesses and his boys are in charge, but eric told "forbes" about a month ago that he regularly updated donald trump on business. jared kushner divested some of his assets into trusts for his family, but that is one of the most tightknit business families in america, so the idea that that is a clear bright line is hard to believe, as well. carol: up next, nike takes a run

at being cool again. oliver: and knitting together the next chapter for etsy. get it? this is bloomberg businessweek. ♪

oliver: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." i'm oliver renick. ♪ carol: and i'm carol massar. still ahead, as he struggles to tsy struggling to compete with the likes of google, facebook, and amazon. oliver: nike wants to be the coolest kid in the room again, banking on technology. all that ahead on "bloomberg businessweek." ♪ oliver: a reporter makes a trip to nike headquarters to find out how the company is beating fierce competition from adidas and underarmour. >> they just came out with the

in it is -- vapor max march. a running shoe they have been working on in one way or another for seven years. it is an extension of their famous "air" branding. the made the airbag the entire sole. they have always wanted to do that, they think it is a cool idea, kind of radical looking it , is part of their way to still that momentum from adidas who momentum fromthat adidas who has caught fire in the north american market and has grabbed share back from nike. nike is still the giant, but they have lost momentum, and they are not the only cool brand now the way they were for years. carol: back in 2010 is when they started working on this shoe and the market has changed substantially. is a shoe like this, will this bring it back to its glory days? >> they hope so. it goes for $190, and it is selling out because they put it out and limited supplies to keep the buzz going, but each time they bring out a new color, it

sells out. they know the shoes will be worn as statement shoes. most running shoes are. carol: most running shoes are not really for runners, right? >> they will tell you if you want to run in it, it will do it, but most people who buy it won't be running in it. they are hoping it will catch on as street wear and office wear. but they know it is kind of provocative and polarizing. oliver: who are they appealing to? they tryat risk when to push something like this is a style point? >> it is a tricky balance. they always said performance is where you start and what you think about when you are designing, and the fashion follows that. the air shoe was to be nice cushioning, and then people thought it looked cool. they sold a lot of them that way. but you start with the idea of nice cushioning. that is getting harder and harder to do, especially as fashion drives the market more and more and you see kanye west partnering with adidas.

shoes, they provide a halo for the brand, give it a good name in the market and it drives a market for street wear. oliver: and they are not athletic whatsoever, but they are still in the same market eating away at their market. >> it is the same customers who line up around the block for a a pair of air jordans. they have to be comfortable, but the idea is how cool are you when you wear them? carol: homegrown entrepreneurs gets a wake-up call from activist investors. oliver: we talk about etsy. >> etsy is sort of a youngish company that is publicly traded on the nasdaq exchange. they are venture backed, but what makes them interesting is they are a place were you can buy and sell mostly handmade and vintage things. think about ebay, but for all things twee.

hand forged, locally sourced, grass fed anything you can , imagine that is of that kind of millennial, expensive, new agey thing you can buy on it -- buy it on etsy. the business works similar to ebay as they take a cut of every transaction. they have millions of sellers, i sell 1.8 million people items on etsy. it has been set up in many hilarious sketches on portland you, but for a long time etsy had positioned itself as a critique of capitalism. they would say we are creating a new manufacturing industry where people make stuff, and where stuff is responsibly sourced. meansre a be corp., which they have to abide by certain values. what happened a couple of weeks ago, some activists investors came along. they are pushing for change at etsy in the most capitalistic way possible. and so we have a clash of values. carol: take a step back. b corp. they are the only publicly held company that has that rating.

and there is specific criteria. >> there is a company in brazil and one in new zealand, but they are the only company on a u.s. exchange that is a b corp. it is like a certified fair trade organic. there is a third-party that looks at everything you do as a company -- how you treat your employees, what you do for the environment, etc., etc. if you measure up, you get this rating. which is "b corp." a lot of well-known start-ups have this. patagonia, warby parker, kickstarter. one wrinkle here is that if etsy wants to keep his certification, articles change its this summer to become a public benefit corp., which would allow shareholders to sue at the -- sue them or something if they were not being good with the environment.

because of this activist thing happening, it seems like betsy -- etsy will lose it s certification this summer. oliver: pressure coming down from investors in the publicly traded companies so they have shares, they have got enough power to incite change. that is the crux of the story, but to understand that, we had to understand where etsy came from. tell us about the founder and who runs the company? up until this point now as we come to this crossroads. >> it is a startup like no other. york, it isin new the largest new york startup to come along in a decade. the founder has an interesting background. he snuck into m.i.t. by way of a fake student id. [laughter] >> he is making handmade computers that are encased in beautiful wood. he starts etsy by accident. he wants to sell these computers he is making, and by accident,

creates this fast-growing company. in 2011, the founder was -- the founder left the company and they brought in this new guy, chad dickerson. he is a little bit like the founder. he was the ceo for the past six years. he is a former journalist. he worked as an engineer at salon.com. he had this idea that etsy could be both socially conscious and also super ambitious as a business. oliver: up next a word of , caution if you are ever approached by a brain-training company. this is "bloomberg businessweek."

♪ oliver: welcome back to

"bloomberg businessweek." i'm oliver renick. carol: and i'm carol massar. oliver: snapchat is unveiling new camera apps that they hope will keep it ahead of facebook. >> everyone wants his company to be the next facebook, and there are just as many people who worry it is the next twitter. snap wants to come out and say they are neither of those things, and that they are something totally unique and should be measured on a different scale, which we don't think they will be lucky enough to get that treatment. they certainly didn't after their earnings and stocks fell more than 25%. oliver: that is what i was just about to say. megan murphy, editor of "businessweek," was asking me, what do you use each for and i said facebook is for pictures of your family, instagram is for pictures of your food, and snapchat is for pictures of declining user growth. [laughter] oliver: i do feel after that earnings report, everything is kind of blown out of the water. it is all on the table. how much time do they had to convince investors that facebook is not going to eat their lunch? carol: when facebook came out

after its first public earnings, it was disappointing. reporter: they lost half their value in the market. but snap, they are in a position where they have to make sure that people don't have the same refrain after every quarter -- user growth, user growth, user growth -- which happened to twitter. we saw that that will lead to -- -- we saw what that led to, changing the ceo and everything like that. snap, what they have to do is come out and solve the user growth issue, but especially, prove to people that every time they do something really creative with their platform, that they can keep that is a unique feature that draws people to their app as opposed to something facebook could quickly iterate and put on the many social apps that have now adopted some of snap's most popular tools. carol: listen, advertisers have to want to be a part of snap. this what they are doing right

now. right? they are tapping big-time into advertisers. talk about what they are doing. reporter: snap once to sell -- snap wants to sell advertisers on its creativity. they are saying we are the platform where you can reach the young people that don't go on television anymore. the people are on our at using app using it really frequently. they are obsessed with it. they are using it to send silly selfies to each other. and snap is the only place, until today with an instagram update -- where you can do these funny filters on your face that turn you into a puppy, or make you vomit rainbows. [laughter] reporter: and advertisers are buying into this and making these really creative tie-ins with snap. there is this big campaign for cinco de mayo where taco bell let eople turn their heads into best people -- people turn their heads into tacos. now they are taking that into the real world.

they are letting people put movie characters, whatever it may be, on to the real world, which is a technological step. it is easy for the camera to recognize what parts of your face are your eyes and mouth and head, but it is harder to decide where should you put an item in the real world. carol: staying in technology, the growing business of so-called brain training has moved beyond crossword puzzles. oliver: new neuro-feedback sensors are stretching the definition of acceptable suffering. >> the idea is you are looking at eeg's of brain activity, and while the basic science underlying eeg-based brain assessments has become a cottage industry, there are patterns of brain activity associated with particular emotions, including arousal and attention, that

seemed to produce certain maps of brain activity or really identifiable ones. there's now a growing industry called neural feedback centers, pitching themselves these technicians to analyze or master brand activity, telling you you were focused at this point of the test, but based on what we know about your brain through a series of sessions, we can teach you to alleviate symptoms of anxiety, depression, even autism. migraines, sleep disorders but , the science on that is not all in. oliver: sounds pretty good on paper. and we did our due diligence and sent a reporter to one of these facilities. tell us about this company. reporter: neuro core has been around since 2004 in one form of another, founded by a guy who's been using this kind of brain

training exercises on kids in parochial schools and athletes and the like. the new front facing store in the strip mall version of neurocore is a little more -- a little more intense. the way our reporter went in to get his initial assessment done, which was $250 as opposed to these training sessions. oliver: strap on some electrodes and take a look? carol: what was his experience? reporter: he went in for an initial assessment where they put the electrodes on your head, where they put the gel on and study your brain patterns. they told him to focus on a

fixed point to see how attentive his brain could get. it took about half an hour or so. and then a technician came in, and study the map of brain activity, and said it felt almost a little like a fortune teller reading. to be honest with you from reading his account. so, like this blotch of blue means you get sleepy during the day, and this block of red means you have some trouble focusing. they took him into the next room, where it is a little more training-focused. it is called the brain room. a second technician burst in and said, sorry, we showed you the wrong brain map. [laughter] reporter: left him feeling a little less confident about the experience. carol: wow! what did the second map say? the same thing or something different? reporter: the technician said the second map looks a lot more normal, that there is less to be concerned about, but that you still have some trouble focusing and recommended more sessions.

oliver: this is really interesting. do you know what it reminds me of? have you seen the movie "batman forever?" one of those really bad batman movies. jim carrey plays the riddler and puts the thing on that can read brain waves? there's a lot of science fiction behind the idea of reading the brain. but now it seems like there might be a little more science than fiction. what do they say at neurocore about what the results are? what the training is going to do for the people that are paying. reporter: neurocore tends to be pretty careful about the ways in which they are precisely wording their claims. but they have said of until the past week or so on their website, that they stood by their claims that technology could be used to treat symptoms of anxiety, depression, autism, migraines, and the like. carol: up next, why a chinese

peroxide company paid $1 billion for a talking cat. oliver: plus living is good for the world's 119th ranked golfer. this is "bloomberg businessweek." ♪

♪ carol: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." i'm carol massar. oliver: and i'm oliver renick. you can get us on the radio at sirius xm channel 119, and on am 1130 in new york, and 1200 in boston, 99.1 in washington, d.c., and also in bay area. carol: and in london on the abm ux3, and in asia on the bloomberg radio plus app. oliver: the curious case of the $1 billion talking cat. carol: and why a chinese peroxide company paid $1 billion for the talking tom app. >> they are computer scientists , a couple from slovenia working , in the local tech scene, and they decided they wanted to get into the app economy around the

time steve jobs first introduced the app store. they tried a bunch of different things that did not work. one was about sending virtual hugs, and another was about healing crystals. but then they hit on one that hit off in a major way, which is this game, talking tom. oliver: so they get the talking tom, around late 2000? tell us about what the market was looking at the time for these things that have now become ubiquitous. >> this was about 2010 when this game came out. it is a kid's game in which you can interact with a virtual cat. you can pet it and speak into the microphone. it will repeat what you say. this was the early days of the app store. if you got a big hit, it could be immensely profitable. that is what happened to them, now they are making this company they created, outfit seven, making $100 million a year in profit. carol: and really kind of the

crux of your story, they eventually sold it, but not to your usual suspects. it wasn't a media or entertainment company. reporter: right. they are an example of a company that sold to a big chinese industrial firm, a maker of hydrogen peroxide and other chemicals. so you kind of go, why would a chemicals company want to buy an app company? out there are a lot of these deals. these big industrial companies have pretty thin profit margins and their business was slowing as the chinese economy has been taking a breather. so now they are looking to go into these other areas. if you have a successful game, it can be very profitable. oliver: so this is where it gets a little bit kind of confusing. [laughter] carol: wait, the peroxide company with the videogame app? oliver: at the end of the day, they are forking over major sums

of money to the creators of these games. you have to ask why? in the article you get into this. tell us about why these chinese companies are willing to go outside of their style drift, if you will, from their business line to tack on what is completely different? howdy attack on a videogame on any -- how do you tack videogame company and why? >> there is a little bit of financial engineering here. more than a little bit, to be honest. what you are doing here is you have companies that have higher profit margins than what your traditional business is. in china, the way that the companies are valued, they can buy these game companies at a discount compared to what would seem appropriate elsewhere in the world based on how the chinese stock market is. oliver: so industrial companies trading at very high multiples, when compared in the u.s., when you look at those types of

groups, those are trading at subdued multiples. so it is worth more in the chinese market? >> right. it is based very much so in china more than in the u.s. or anywhere else in the world. your stock price is almost exclusively tied to your profits. if you are trading at a multiple, and you can get more profit than you can boost your stock price. so by buying game companies with profit margins of 40 plus percent compared to your chemical company, which is less than 10%, you can really goose your stock price. oliver: in the etcetera section, you may have never heard of beats johnson, but he is a pretty famous golfer. but the golfer is not really connected to the fame. reporter: he is the 119th best golfer in the world, which is pretty impressive. but his celebrity and fame really outpaces his golf talent at this point. he's a sort of pudgy brit. he came onto the scene a little more than a year ago when he won the spanish open.

in an interview after winning, he said he was going to go back home to "get hammered." [laughter] >> that endeared him to the fans. oliver: obviously everybody loves him. how can you not love a guy named beef who is going to throw back some brews? he the 119th ranked golfer right now. it may seem of a low number, but there are a lot of people playing golf, and he has monetized it very smartly. or at least companies have found him. one in particular, arby's. tell us about his arrangement. >> yeah, arby's is his main sponsor, and it is kind of perfect because there slogan is "we have the meats." they fell in love with him and have sponsored him full-time since january. they hold these sort of informal rap sessions with him at bars called beef tips. our reporter went down to one in new orleans. oliver: like a hangou session -- hang out session with beef.

>> right. and he put a pint glass on the floor, and had a bunch of college kids putt into it. none of them knew who he was, but now obviously he is their favorite golfer. carol: this is a really friendly guy. he doesn't say no to anything. if fans want to come up and talk to him and get his signature or whatever. >> that is a double-edge sword. he is really nice and really popular and fun, but to get really good at golf, to crack the top 50 which is his goal, you have to generally take monastic dedication to the sport. how do you do that and retain your personality? it is going to be his challenge going forward. oliver: so, the qualities that made him so appealing might be somewhat of a hurdle he has to get past? >> that's right. if he wants to keep these sponsorships coming in, you have to keep getting better. and to be a top 50 golfer, you have to go from having bad rounds that are 75 to 77 to more like 70-71. you don't just wake up and start doing that.

you have to practice. but if you want to go hang out at pubs with your friends, there is a trade-off. carol: "bloomberg businessweek" is available on newsstands now. oliver: what was your favorite story? carol: a lot of news going on. business we captured it so well, following the trump administration and what is going on with the questions involving president trump. john micklethwait takes a look at donald trump, not as a politician, but as a business leader, and asked the question, if the united states with a company, would you keep this guy as its ceo? oliver: a very fair question given that is what president trump campaigned on. being a ceo. i think it is very fair. carol: big time. you? oliver: i love the story about companies looking at etsy. when you look at companies that put business on environmentally sustainable stuff, the chickens have come home to roost because it is getting very expensive for them to keep doing it. i think it will be very indicative of what other companies are doing.

carroll: you just like it because you buy knitted scarves from there. oliver more bloomberg television : starts right now. ♪

♪ julia: coming up on "bloomberg best," the stories that shaped the week in business around the world. leaks, tweets, and memos cause chaos in washington and raise concern on wall street. >> they better change here. they are talking the how much you will actually be able to be taxed. >> we could do with less drama i think from the white house. julia: the british government takes a hard stance on brexit. political crises erupt in brazil. and china bets big with belt and road. >> i believe the u.s. will have to join this effort and join the one belt, one road program. julia: as markets leave investors to react. >> trump trade is coming to an end here. >> it is nothing to run around